Analysis: Vermont Storm Fit Climate Change Trend: Was Big, I Even Have to Pick Up The Pieces

This tree fell on my husband Jeep in my St. Albans, Vermont yard,
likely totaling the vehicle

I spent last night as a storm refugee for the first time I can remember.  Then again, the storm Thursday night and Friday was among the worst I can remember, at least for Vermont as a whole.

At least in my opinion, it was the Green Mountain State's most destructive storm since the epic floods of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.  Between the flooding - record river crests in at least two spots in northern Vermont - and the damaging winds, this one will probably have parts of Vermont declared a disaster areas.

For me and my husband Jeff, things aren't nearly as bad, as it is for some people, mind you.  My house is intact, but it lacks electricity. Falling branches pulled the wires and electrical box from the house and messed with the wiring system in the house, so we had to shut off the brakers. We hope to get things fixed within the next few days.

Plus a large tree fell on Jeff's Jeep, and it's probably totaled.  With all that going on, we moved into a La Quinta Inn motel room for the night.  I'm wrote most of this missive Saturday morning from the "comforts" of this motel room.

Our situation is an inconvenience that is being resolved super quickly. I was surprised and delighted when I checked on my house at 8:30 a.m. today to find Green Mountain Power already there repairing our electrical line. They have so much work to do after this store that I was very impressed with GMP's responsiveness.

There are other Vermonters who are sorting through flood damaged homes and businesses, trying to navigate washed out roads, figuring out what to do now that the culvert under the driveway, and the driveway itself is gone.  It will take awhile for some people to recover from this.  (Had we not replaced a culvert with a larger, sturdier one this summer, Jeff and I would have lost our driveway too in this storm, along with the other trouble we had.)

This was a much more serious storm than anyone expected in Vermont. Its effects are wide ranging, causing damage from near the Gulf Coast to Quebec.  The storm had its birth in the Rocky Mountains, where it caused unseasonable snows and all-time record lows for October. The storm contributed to the strong winds in California that fanned those wildfires.

Technically, the storm was a nationwide disaster.

You usually can't trace a direct line between a storm and climate change. You can't say this storm was "caused" by climate change. You can say this storm was consistent with climate change. The storm was probably influenced by climate change and there's a very good chance climate change made this storm worse than it otherwise might have been. If there wasn't climate change maybe the wind with this storm would not have been strong enough to knock the tree onto Jeff's Jeep. Who knows?

From WVNY: Significand flooding in Richmond, Vermont Friday. 

This tempest was a product of a wonky jet stream, which many scientists see as clue that climate change is messing with weather patterns. In a sense, this is so far the biggest direct impact climate change has had on me so far.

The rainfall was particularly, oddly heavy, especially in northern and central New York, most of Vermont and southern Quebec.  Here in Vemont, the storm dumped 5.26 inches of rain on East Berkshire and 4.85 inches on Enosburg Falls. After the heavy rains of the previous week, it's no wonder the Missisquoi River reached a record high crest at North Troy,'

In the Lamoille River watershed, 4.8 inches of rain fell on Fletcher, raising that river to a record high crest in Jeffersonville. This was no ordinary Vermont flood.

In an ominous way, this type of heavy rainfall makes sense. The atmosphere can hold more water when its warmer, meaning potential precipitation is heavier. Sure, this might have happened anyway. Vermont's worst flood on record, in 1927, happened this time of year, too. But these heavy rain events are getting more frequent. Parts of the Green Mountain State were declared a disaster area due to some serious flooding just this past April.

This storm had quite a one/two punch as the winds caused serious damage, as I said all up and down the East Coast and into Quebec. The damage was certainly noticeable here in Vermont, including at my St. Albans house, as mentioned.

Up to 50,000 people lost power in Vermont. That figure was 900,000 in Quebec, making this the worst power outage in the Canadian province since the famous ice storm of 1998. A man died around Montreal when, while taking a photo of a fallen tree, another tree fell on him, CBC reported.

The wind in Vermont was almost as destructive as the flooding. At some points Friday, at least 50,000 homes and businesses were without power in Vermont. Before dawn this morning that figure had fallen to roughly 28,000, including at yours truly's house.  With numbers that big, it will take a long time before everybody has electricity. I bet some people will be out for a week or more.

Elsewhere, the wind collapsed a large barn up in Maidstone, Vermont. A section of Interstate 91 was briefly closed when a fallen tree blocked both southbound lanes. The storm also cut off internet access in much of Burlington.

The temperature gyrations with this storm were incredibly remarkable, too. Again, I won't say climate changed "caused" this temperature weirdness, but it probably influenced it. Climate change can lead to bigger extremes.

True, out in the Rockies, on the cold side of this storm, they had a nearly unprecedented cold snap for this early in the season. Some cities hit all-time record lows for October. But as Vermont was in the throes of the storm, temperatures rose to a record highs in places like Burlington, where it reached 71 degrees late in the evening of October 31,  despite the fact the sun had long since set and it was raining.

The dew point, a measure of how much moisture is in the air, reached the humid levels of a muggy July night.

Very often, an emergency brings out the best in people and that was the case here.  For instance, in Burlington's Intervale, vegetable farms put out a call on social media to help quickly harvest carrots and other crops before the Winooski River flood arrived to ruin the vegetables. More than a dozen people showed up to save the day.

Even Vermont Gov. Phil Scott got into the act.  A tree blocked a road along his route Friday, so he pulled a chainsaw out of the back of his truck and removed the tree.

As is typical with big storms, we're getting something of a break from the rough weather.  A series of small little storms will gradually sink us into winter conditions over the course of the next week, at least for awhile.

But we are in a "new normal," as the cliche goes, so we'll experience more wild storms, more temperature extremes and more weirdness, both here in Vermont and everywhere else.  As my experience shows, even when it's not that bad, this is tiring and expensive. But here we are.

Some videos:

The Winooski River racing through the city of Winooski:



During the Halloween night storm, a tornado touched down west of Philadelphia. Here's a damage video:



And an ABC News overview of the storm.